my girlfriend pointed out to me that there are many aspects of Easter that are not found in the bible, but are carried over from a roman holiday tha celebrated a pagan god.
She said it is the worship of the moon-goddess, named Ishtar. She said the eggs in easter are a symbol to represent ovulation, 28 days. This symbolizes the moon.
**The lunar month is 29 & a half days long - not 28. **
**As other posters have said, this is all inaccurate - could you ask her for her references ? It would be interesting to know where her sources get their information from, especially as these items have been discussed & exploded many a time. **
The moon godess, according to pagan Roman religion, was pregnant for 28 days . The Moon Goddess became pregnant by recieving the rays of the sun from Baal. The the moon came down and fell in the Euphrates river. Where she concieved her son named Tammaz. Tammaz was very found of “rabbits” and liked to hunt them.
Is this really so? If so why do christian faiths still celebrate Easter and why haven’t they changed the name to something else?
**The Ishtar-Easter idea is a piece of bad etymology from the 1850s. **
Baal was not unknown at Rome, but he was not an Italian or Roman deity - there were various Baals, & various gods known as “Baal”, of whom the worships were imported from parts of Syria. (The Baal of the OT is not in origin a Syrian god, but an import from Mesopotamia; the god Hadad, who was worshipped at Baalbek in the Lebanon as a solar god)
**Roman cults were very numerous, both in the City & in the Empire. **
**Ishtar is one of the few Mesopotamian deities not to have a family (though the god Shara, her hairdresser, is sometimes called her son). She is represented as the daughter of the Moon-god Sin & as the sister of Shamash the sun-god. She is almost identical with the Sumerian goddess Inana, the lover of the god Dumuzi AKA Tammuz, whose mother is the ewe-goddess Duttur & whose sister is the goddess Geshtinana. Inana, unlike Ishtar, is the goddess represented as the divine wife of many human kings. **
**“Baal” is often used as a title for gods, especially for “high gods”; & is often used to stand for the title “Lord” in other languages than Hebrew - which is a bit like the annoying & unhelpful habit people gained of referring to non-Classical gods by the names of the Greek or Latin gods to whom they more or less corresponded - as when Ptah is called Hephaestus, or Marduk is called Jupiter Belus. **
**Baal-Hadad was not a solar god in origin, but a storm-god - which is why it was possible to confuse him with the Israelite God, who is often associated with thunder & cloud; as the OT shows. In parts of Syria, the equivalent of Shamash was the goddess Shapsh; Originally, Shamash too may have been thought of as a goddess. Baal-Hadad was thought of as the son of Dagan or of El; or as son of both, in different senses. He seems never to be associated with Ishtar, & has nothing to do with Tammuz. **
**Tammuz was not a hunter at all, but a “dying god”. Inana-Ishtar is a war-goddess, a dynastic deity, & a goddess of sexuality in all its forms. She is maternal yet aggressive, & has a very nasty temper; she also has connections to prophecy. In one myth, of which there is more than one version, she invades the Underworld, is stripped, judged, dies, & is restored to life. **
**As for the moon falling into the Euphrates - that sounds very odd. There is a Classical myth about an egg falling & doing so. **
Hope that helps.
